Canterlot. The royal city of Equestria. It was quite a beautiful sight when you looked at it in the morning. You can hear all the birds singing their morning song as they fly to get their breakfast. The ponies were up and about getting to where they needed to be.
Of course, every building in Canterlot was planned, constructed, and decorated to be beautiful. The colors of their paint seemed to give some sort of shine as the light of the sun bounced off them. Making it look like they were made of jewels and topped off with floral touches.
The most beautiful building was no other than the Canterlot castle. It was quite a ways away from the main part of Canterlot, but you can still see it hanging off the side of the mountain. It looked like something out of a fairytale with it having ten times the tender love and care put into your average Canterlot building. I wish I could stop here and say that it was nothing but an amazing castle, but I have to add one thing: the only thing that ruined the sight of the castle was the fact that the entire thing was closed off from the rest of the city by a magical barrier.
It's been like this for ten years. Ever since the attack on Equestria, the element bearers closed themselves off from the world, afraid of the evil that waits for them to come outside.
The only ponies you saw come in and out of the castle were workers who lived somewhere else. Most ponies were fine with this eyesore of a barrier, but others felt trapped.
The day started like any other at the castle. The royal guards attended to their posts around the castle. The cooks made breakfast for everyone that stayed there. The three queens were up and already discussing ways they can improve their kingdom.
They were sisters, not biologically. They were all adopted by Princess Celestia for when she eventually needed to step down from the throne. Everyone was a bit hesitant about that choice. They all thought that day would never come because Princess Celestia was immortal. She kept saying that she wasn’t and it’s just that her job in Equestria wasn’t completed yet. Only then will she disappear from existence.
She was right. Not long after the three sisters had their children, both Celestia and Luna seemed to just disappear all of the sudden. Everyone says that they now live on the sun and moon, still moving them up and down to create day and night.
In their place is now the three mares they adopted. Rainblossom, the oldest and most gentle and caring out of the three. She helped with agricultural and medical problems around Equestria because she knows so much on the subject. She’s a beautiful mare and ponies say that flowers bloom in her presence.
Sugarhearts, the youngest, the fun, and most lighthearted of the three. She handles foreign affairs with other kingdoms because of her very likable personality, almost everyone wants to befriend her. She is also said to find perfect matches. Like, she could see who everyone’s soulmate is with one glance.
Lastly, there’s Dark Jewel or D.J for short. She’s the middle child, the bravest, and the most aware. She is in charge of Equestria’s army forces, like the royal guard, because she seems to know a lot about enemy forces and their way of thinking. She was once raised to be one of those enemies, but rejected the opportunity and ran away from the home she lived in. She still uses those lessons on villains to her advantage when someone tries to threaten Equestria.
They have been in charge of Equestria ever since the disappearance of Celestia and Luna. Aside from one major battle, Equestria is safe under their rule.
But safe doesn’t always mean happy. Because of this battle, they had; they now need to be on constant watch for any signs of trouble. This means they can’t be distracted from their jobs. Any possible distractions were commanded to stay away from them throughout the day. This was not their idea, but rather the kingdom. This was the effect of them being so paranoid about these runaway villains who put them through so much trouble ten years ago.
These distractions included their children. They tried to see them at night before they went to bed, but soon enough ruling Equestria became extremely tiring and they were told to go to sleep right after their job was done for the day.
Today, they were right on schedule. Picking up breakfast straight from the kitchen then going into the throne room where they discuss everything that has been going on and what they can do about it.
Outside in the garden, animals were frolicking around and enjoying life. There were two other ponies there.
One was sitting under a tree and reading a book. He was a pegasus stallion. His fur was a grayish-blue color, and his cutie mark was a paintbrush and a lollipop crossing over each other to make an “x.” His messy hair was purple fading to pink and was long enough to go over his left eye, making its appearance a mystery. His other eye was a big and bright yellow color. He looked up from his book and up at the tree he was sitting at.
“How’s it going Sweet Tune?” he asked it.
Well, he didn’t ask the tree. Rather, someone inside it. There was an alicorn mare on the tree branch closest to the barrier.
She looked somewhat like a pony. Her fur was a light blue, and her wild mane was silvery white. Now, I could stop there and say she looked perfectly normal, but that’s not the case here. She had two legs that were of a changeling (her front right leg and her back left leg), her horn was also changeling like, and fragments of her hair were the web-like teal hair that royal changelings had. Her front left leg had dragon claws on it, her tail resembled that of a dragon’s, and her left-wing was scaly and webbed. Her head, body, most of her hair, and back right leg all were pony-like. Even her right-wing which was brown. She had fangs in her grin and her eyes were two different colors. The right one is green and her left one being purple. She looked like the product of some freakish science experiment, but that was all genetic. Freakish genetics.
Lastly, there was a bottle tied around her neck with a black string. Inside the bottle was a teal substance. To be honest, she doesn’t know much about it except that she was given her necklace when she was four and she never took it off since then. It was almost sacred to her because it was given to her by her mother.
She was staring intensely at the barrier until the stallion who sat under the tree asked her the question.
“It’s going great Sour Patch! I figured out that the way to make the barrier open is to have an intense staring contest with it,” she responded sarcastically, her voice containing a Spanish accent.
Sour Patch gave the young mare a sympathetic smile, “How does it look out there?”
“There’s a market going on right now. Lemme get a good look at it. You can get fresh fruits and vegetables, home decor, accessories for yourself. Anything else you would like to know?”
“What types of fruits are they selling?”
“All kinds of them. Bananas, peaches, nectarines, oranges, apples,”
“That does sound good. Speaking of fruit, it’s about time breakfast is served. We should probably get Orchard Drop and head over to the dining room.”
Sweet Tune nodded and looked around at the tree, “Searchlight! It’s time to go!” she yelled at it. It was about two seconds before a white ferret popped its head out of the tree. It made its way up to Sweet Tune’s head and laid down to rest.
Sweet Tune then made her way down the tree and rejoined Sour Patch. They started walking into the castle and through one of the many hallways in there. They stopped in front of three doors. Sweet Tune opened the door at the very right to drop off Searchlight, and Sour Patch opened the door at the very left to drop off his book.
They rejoined in front of the door in the middle. Sour Patch then lightly knocked on the door and they both waited. The door eventually opened a crack and a face appeared on the other side. The face belonged to a unicorn mare.
You could tell by her face that her eyes were a dark green color, and her fur was magenta. A bit of her mane showed it was a light turquoise color. There was also a crystal-like effect exclusively on her fur. This was because she was half crystal pony. She was the second crystal pony to be found out of the Crystal Empire. Her father was the first, but we don’t speak of him.
“Yes?” she asked with a stern tone in her voice.
“Hey, Orchard Drop. Would you mind stepping out of your room for once and enjoy a nice breakfast with your cousins?” Sweet Tune asked the unicorn.
Orchard Drop was not much for socializing. She normally spent her time cooped up in her bedroom or lab where she conducted science experiments. Her cousins figured that if food and sleep weren’t a crucial part of life, she would be in there 24/7.
She gave an annoyed look, “Yes, I very much do mind, but food does sound rather delightful.”
She fully stepped out of her room. Now you could see that her long mane was tied into a loose ponytail with a dark blue hair tie, topped off with a magenta star. Her cutie mark was an atom, and her long tail dragged behind her as she walked towards the dining room. Sweet Tune and Sour Patch followed behind her.
“She loves food more than us, doesn’t she?” Sweet Tune asked Sour Patch in a quiet voice so Orchard Drop couldn’t eavesdrop.
Sour Patch gave her a small smile, “Hey, at least the food was able to get her out of her room.”
As they reached the dining room, they saw that the food was neatly presented on the table. That was all. There was no other pony there to join the three. As sad as it sounds, they were used to that. That’s been the case for almost ten years.
With breakfast eaten and the time passing, the three ponies were trying to get past their day, Sweet Tune trying the hardest. She hated being cooped up in that castle more than anything. She knew every room, every worker, every decoration, even every secret passageway. She felt like there was nothing left to do at that castle except reading. Read every book in the Canterlot library.
She’s been making progress, not as much as her cousins, but progress. For the rest of the day, she read a book about ancient magic and relics that were lost through time. She wondered if they would ever come back. She read chapters on many things, including an amulet that could change the weather (That could be pretty helpful during Winter Wrap-up, Sweet Tune thought), a magic that could be wielded by earth ponies (Say what now?), little caped creatures that worked as minions or servants to a certain master (I wonder what they look like under those capes, and how do they stand on two legs?), and a glittery substance called essence. Sweet Tune recognized this substance. Whenever she read books on Equestrian history, they would refer to this.
It was theorized as an important weapon the group of misfits used the day they attacked Canterlot.
The day they attacked her mother.
The day they gave her cousin a blind eye and a half a body covered in burn marks.
The day Equestrians lost their trust in everything.
The day that made her life the way it is.
She shook the thought out of her head and went to turn the page, but the page. That was the last one. It cut off, she could even see that the last pages were torn out, almost like someone didn’t want her to see what was next. Sweet Tune slammed the book shut in frustration and turned to yet another history book.
This one was different. Instead of being about your average events in history, it was about some of the most dangerous beings in Equestrian history. Sweet Tune was curious, so she opened the book and began to read.
She saw some of the usuals, Nightmare Moon, King Sombra, Tirek, Discord, even some that we’re threats in a different dimension. Names like The Sirens, Gaya Everfree, Midnight Sparkle, and a weird red demon that had the name Sunset Shimmer appeared. Sweet Tune wasn’t surprised to find pages about her grandmother, Queen Chrysalis. There was even a small section dedicated to her mother. She’s heard that story many times before, mainly from people who were scared that she too would turn into a changeling and cause more trouble. She never listened to them because she knew it would never happen, she could barely even activate her changeling magic.
She turned pages to find new faces and new names. A serial killer with a huge body count that used to belong to a wealthy and upper-class family; she killed herself before the city could. A famous performer who would lie to others out of the spotlight until she eventually murdered someone because of it but was caught and treated terribly for the rest of her life; she was murdered in the same way she murdered, poison. A young scientist who was said to have gone mad due to exposure to certain chemicals. What he did was so morbid, Sweet Tune could barely stomach it and skipped a bit; she did catch that he was executed before she moved on. A news reporter who was said to have been possessed and was killed during the exorcism that was meant to free him. A restaurant owner who secretly poisoned his customers’ food for the fun of it; died from an illness. A supposed magician who drew in his audience with his handsome looks and likable personality. Ponies who went to his shows never came back; he died from an animal attack. Last was a pirate captain who sailed the seven seas to pillage cities and steal the lives of innocent ponies; she was killed from drowning due to an attack from the two sisters to stop her.
Sweet Tune kept on reading until the librarian told her to leave because she had to close for the night. Sweet Tune barely realized that the sun had gone down and the moon took its place. She left the books and retreated to her room to sleep.
“Another day wasted doing nothing,” she said to her ferret as she climbed into bed. Searchlight responded with a tired squeak before drifting off to sleep. Sweet Tune followed by turning off her lamp and sinking into the soft bed.
The light.
It was bright.
It was hard to sleep.
What’s going on?
Sweet Tune was suddenly awoken by a bright light in her room. She looked around tiredly to see where it was coming from. She looked down. Her necklace. The bottle. The magic inside the bottle was glowing. It got brighter, and brighter, and brighter. Sweet Tune didn’t know why. She frantically looked around her room to see if there was anything that can help, but the more time she wasted, the brighter the light was.
She then got an idea. She didn’t know if it would work, but it was worth a try. She ran out of her room and through the halls of the castle. She looked everywhere, then stopped. There in front of her was the entrance to a room. She stopped for a second, then opened the doors. It was a bedroom. It belonged to the only pony who she thought could help. She approached the bed. The pony who gave her this necklace must know what’s happening. It was the best possible idea she had. They just had to know. Would they listen to her? The last time they talked was about 10 years ago. She stood next to the pony in the bed. Here goes nothing.
“Mom!”
The pony in bed sat straight up and looked around frantically, “Whatisit?” she said half asleep. She looked at the pony standing next to her, but a bright light was making it hard to figure out who it was. She eventually made out who it was.
“Sweet Tune? I-is that you? What are you doing up so late?”
Sweet Tune said nothing. She just took off the bottle tied to her neck and held it out to her mother, D.J. “Why is this happening?” the younger mare asked.
Suddenly, D.J’s eyes widened, and had the most terrified expression on her face, almost as she had some unwanted realization. This only made Sweet Tune more scared and confused
Her mother took the necklace and bolted out of the room.